New Singapore Startup Announces Innovative Medical Travel Platform Connecting US Patients with Health Care Facilities in Asia

(prHWY.com) March 3, 2012 - Singapore, Singapore -- Singapore - Michael Ruggles today unveiled medisherpa.com, an innovative medical travel platform specially designed for connecting North American patients with a safe cost-efficient pre-screened base of medical facilities in Asia.

Speaking at an international forum on Medical Tourism earlier this month, medisherpa.com Co-Founder Michael Ruggles had this to say about Singapore: "There is no denying that the medical tourism market in Asia is seeing unprecedented market growth catapulting it to the number one destination for foreign patients in the world and I believe that Singapore is in a unique position to act as a bridge to connect the needs of patients in the West with the expertise of health care professionals in the East."

"These are exciting times" Ruggles continued, "we are building a digital health care revolution to facilitate this influx of medical travelers and there is no better place to do that from than the city-state of Singapore that serves as the gatekeeper to a region synonymous with world-class health care, internationally-accredited hospitals, expert doctors, nurses and support staff, all at low treatment costs. Our current platform covers not only hospitals, clinics and surgeons in Singapore but also in Malaysia, Thailand, India and Australia. By the end of the year, we will have similar arrangements for the leading health care providers in Latin America, North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa."

Because the cost of U.S. healthcare remains high, medical tourism could save an American patient thousands of dollars on procedures such as cosmetic or dental surgeries. Likewise Canadians facing long wait times for certain procedures (up to 10 years for selected weight loss surgeries) could benefit from a safe medical tourism alternative--the catch is they need to be willing to travel to a foreign country.

There's a huge range of potential cost savings, anywhere from 50 to 80 percent depending on destination and which procedures are done.

Cosmetic and dental surgeries are the most popular procedures because those are areas that typically are not covered by insurance. For example, a full face and neck lift procedure could cost $13,000 in the U.S., while the same procedure could cost as little as $3,800 abroad.
The savings for uninsured clients in need of cardiovascular or orthopedic procedures are perhaps the most dramatic because costs for those procedures are so exorbitant in the U.S. Hip replacement surgery, for example, could cost anywhere between $40,000 and $65,000 in the U.S., whereas a patient might pay between $8,000 and $18,000, which includes travel costs, to receive the procedure overseas.

5 million people around the world traveled for some sort of medical help last year, and the market is growing at a rate of at least 15 percent a year.

Despite the obvious cost benefits associated with going overseas for medical treatment there is no easy way for potential patients to explore what medical tourism options are available to them. What systems do exist are confusing, intimidating, or often frustrating. By contrast, medisherpa.com highlights where patients can get the help they need, benchmarks the price of any procedure against what it would cost in their home country, showcases the physicians who can perform the work, and with a few clicks book the entire medical tourism experience as a single package.

medisherpa.com, is a Singapore startup incubated by NTU Ventures Pte Ltd. Its key service offering is a medical travel platform where medical tourists can search a pre-screened base of safe and cost efficient medical facilities in Asia and other regions before booking their entire medical package online. For more information visit http://www.medisherpa.com/

WOYT Pte Ltd
16 Nanyang Drive,
Block 1 #01-109,
Innovation Centre.
Singapore 637722
Email: info@medisherpa.com
http://www.medisherpa.com/

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